tall order
Syllables: tall or·derUK/ˈtɔːl ˈɔːdə/US/ˈtɔl ˈɔɹdɚ/
tall order noun: a big job; a difficult challenge.
Noun
tall order (plural tall orders, comparative taller order, superlative tallest order)
- A big job; a difficult challenge.
- [W]e must come, consequently, to the impressive conclusion that to live on potatoes alone[…], a man must eat at least 30 lbs. of potato a day—which would be rather a tall order, even for an Irishman.1871, W. W. Hall, “Are Vegetable Foods Difficult to Digest?”, in Health by Good Living, New York, N.Y.: Published by Hurd and Houghton […], →OCLC, footnote, page 92
- Guess they'd find it a pretty tall order trying to interfere with an American citizen.1911 October, E[dward] Phillips Oppenheim, “The Night Train from Vienna”, in Havoc, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, and Company, →OCLC, page 26
tall order meaning in Thai
tall order in Thai
- big job, difficult challenge
- งานช้าง ngaan-cháang
Examples of tall order in a sentence
- This is a tall order but one of extreme urgency.1947 November, ““Dear Chairman Weichel”: An Open Letter to Chairman Weichel of the House Committee on the Merchant Marine Suggesting a...
- These are tall orders, but they are, in part, the responsibilities you assumed when you donned the mantle of manager.2002, Jack H. Grossman, J. Robert Parkinson, “Introduction”, in Becoming a Successful Manager: How to Make a Smooth Transition from...
Synonyms of tall order
Antonyms
10 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of tall order
| plural | tall orders |
|---|---|
| comparative | taller order |
| superlative | tallest order |
Origin of tall order
From tall (“big, large”) + order (“request”).
Questions about tall order
- What does tall order mean?
- Tall order means a big job; a difficult challenge.
- What is tall order in Thai?
- Tall order in Thai is งานช้าง (ngaan-cháang). See Tall order meaning in Thai.
- How do you use tall order in a sentence?
- This is a tall order but one of extreme urgency.
- What part of speech is tall order?
- Tall order is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tall order?
- Tall order is pronounced /ˈtɔːl ˈɔːdə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of tall order?
- The plural of tall order is tall orders.
Words near tall order in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tall order (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-tall order.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tall order.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tall_order. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.